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Homeschooling hits record numbers

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Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#581

Post by lurking_swe »

arevno wrote: post #479
lurking_swe wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that’s a great fantasy but when you consider, statistically, how many marriages end in divorce - that’s a foolish plan. EVERYONE thinks their marriage is different or special. Maybe working part time is OK, you at least have some job history. But no work history for 10+ years? Great ways to put all your eggs into 1 basket and potentially end up a poor single mom. And i say this as a husband and father.

The vast majority of courts award spousal support for this exact reason. Post-divorce, the vast majority of stay-at-home moms with limited recent work history are supported by court edict.

Great. What if the spouse dies? Or they just stop paying and move to a different country because they’re a jerk? Or they lose their job and can’t support you in the future?

There’s a dozen ways relying on the courts can go wrong. Something to consider in a pro and con list.

Unrelated, if during the marriage the primary breadwinner loses their job and struggles to get back on their feet, the stay at home mom won’t be able to help pay a mortgage with 10 year old skills, as an example.

I have zero problems with stay at home moms. My mom was one and i LOVED spending lots of time with her growing up. But i think many people don’t have an HONEST conversation here that considers the worst case. It’s worth talking about. That’s all i can say. And it might be different if you have a village to support you if needed. Not everyone is blessed with that.

In my immigrant mom’s tragic case, she never really got her foot into the workforce because she wanted to stay home. Because of that her english skills never truly developed. My father became somewhat abusive toward her when i was a young teen. Even threatened to withhold her “allowance” sometimes. Could she have left if she wanted to? No. Legally yes, but practically? Nope. Chained to the marriage basically.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#582

Post by elif »

lapcat wrote: post #507
alphazard wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot, and it may be true, but I am very skeptical that it matters. The statistics about home-schooled children don't support the idea that they have horribly inaccurate models of the world guided mostly by religious thinking. Or if they do it doesn't seem to affect life achievement in any important way. Instead home-schooled children are typically more advanced at graduation and have higher lifetime achi…

> Especially when there is propaganda taught in the public schools that does warp the students' world views in ways that harms them and me. This sentence caused a record needle scratch sound in my head. I'm afraid to ask what you mean, and it seems like you might be afraid to say, because it's a bit bizarre to drop that line with no explanation.

Please check the work of howard zinn or event just watch one of his talks. The entire curriculum is structured to support an ideological narrative more than to provide an honest historical or ethical platform of understanding.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#583

Post by lanfeust6 »

deadeye wrote: post #580

The problem with public schools is that they are free and required (essentually). That is a bad combination. There is really nothing intrinsically good about the average public school. Many are filled with kids that aren't there to learn. From the attitudes seen in this forum, that seems to be OK, because school is paradoxically about "socializing", while most here report being bullied. As noticed here many home scho…

> Many are filled with kids that aren't there to learn.

That's on the kid, not contingent on whether school is public.

> most here report being bullied.

Anecdotes like this are not worth much. What do the stats say?

> There is really nothing intrinsically good about the average public school.

Schools don't just socialize, though that is also important. Whether they succeed at educating well depends on more than one factor, but policy & curriculum is clearly one. Kids are better prepared in some countries than others, still through public systems.

If people want to homeschool, let them. Public school should still be assessed accurately.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#584

Post by aprilthird2021 »

deadeye wrote: post #580

The problem with public schools is that they are free and required (essentually). That is a bad combination. There is really nothing intrinsically good about the average public school. Many are filled with kids that aren't there to learn. From the attitudes seen in this forum, that seems to be OK, because school is paradoxically about "socializing", while most here report being bullied. As noticed here many home scho…

100%

Homeschooling is growing and will continue to grow because it is a cheaper alternative to private school (for people whose incomes aren't so high that the loss of one income eclipses the savings of not paying for private school, e.g. most people). The growth of homeschooling is probably highly correlated with the disconnect and distrust people have with public school. Public school already has an advantage, it's literally free. So it has to have noticeable problems people feel like they can resolve at home, for people to want to leave it behind

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#585

Post by aeroevan »

only-one1701 wrote: post #568
sib wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it may be much better than dealing with the problems that come with having 500 "random" kids to socialize / interact with. Everything's a tradeoff.

Yeah, wouldn’t want kids to learn how to deal with problems.

Dealing with adult problems shouldn't be something kids have to learn, as long as the problems scale with their development that's not a problem

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#586

Post by aprilthird2021 »

ryandrake wrote: post #366
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly right. I had a kid in Seattle schools during this time and this is exactly how I saw it happen and and Seattle schools were a major reason I left Seattle.

This might have been our experience from our bubble, but are these examples representative of the overall pattern? I suspect for every 1 kid pulled out of public school because of academic reasons like gifted programs, there are 10 pulled out due to religious reasons or vaccines or the gamut of anti-government reasons.

But that number used to be 0.25 to 10 or something.

It's clearly a growth not led by religious people, but by people who are charred from their experiences with public school systems

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#587

Post by lanfeust6 »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #584
deadeye wrote: post #580

The problem with public schools is that they are free and required (essentually). That is a bad combination. There is really nothing intrinsically good about the average public school. Many are filled with kids that aren't there to learn. From the attitudes seen in this forum, that seems to be OK, because school is paradoxically about "socializing", while most here report being bullied. As noticed here many home scho…

100% Homeschooling is growing and will continue to grow because it is a cheaper alternative to private school (for people whose incomes aren't so high that the loss of one income eclipses the savings of not paying for private school, e.g. most people). The growth of homeschooling is probably highly correlated with the disconnect and distrust people have with public school. Public school already has an advantage, it's…

> it is a cheaper alternative to private school

That depends. Often it means one parent stays home to educate and watch the kids, otherwise, someone else has to, and that usually costs money. If a wife otherwise would bring home a decent salary, then it isn't cheaper.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#588

Post by singpolyma3 »

ecshafer wrote: post #244
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #147

I can't say my public school experience was great, I was bullied and didn't really click with the popular kids, but being around a cross section of actual American kids in my age group (my school district mixed middle class with lower class neighborhoods) helped me shape my worldview and learn to deal with people who didn't look or talk like me. I frequently saw fights, so I learned that you just stay away and watch…

My kids are not school age yet, and I am not sure on if I will home school or not. But I do think its possible to get good socialization exposure while homeschooling. There is the neighborhood kids, you have sports and clubs kids can join, religious groups. Plus not all homeschooling is just a student staying at home all day. Some people "homeschooling" I know are groups of parents getting together to educate their c…

> Plus not all homeschooling is just a student staying at home all day.

I would argue if your kid stays home all day you're not better than a school so why would you bother? I know zero homeschoolers keeping their kids locked up at home

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#589

Post by singpolyma3 »

prng2021 wrote: post #546
ecshafer wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids are not school age yet, and I am not sure on if I will home school or not. But I do think its possible to get good socialization exposure while homeschooling. There is the neighborhood kids, you have sports and clubs kids can join, religious groups. Plus not all homeschooling is just a student staying at home all day. Some people "homeschooling" I know are groups of parents getting together to educate their c…

Everytime I see these kinds of arguments, it sounds like someone desperately trying to argue that a park playground is almost as entertaining for kids as an amusement park. Your example of 5 kids socializing with each other is definitely better than 1 kid at home. It’s also definitely worse than learning to socialize in a school of 500 kids each day. This is undeniable unless you have an argument of how a pool of 500…

Except you don't interact with a meaningful section of those 500 kids you get stuck most of the day with a small % all the same age as you and told not to talk to each other.

Re: Homeschooling hits record numbers

#590

Post by gregjor »

Obligatory post of John Taylor Gatto's article The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher:

https://selfdirectededucation.neocities.org/pdf/JTG%20The%20...

A former teacher of the year, Gatto became very influential in early homeschooling movements.

Parents or potential parents interested in education and schooling might also want to read Maria Montessori, and John Holt's books "How Children Fail" and "How Children Learn."

We as a species actually know quite a bit about raising children, socialization, and education. I think we get duped by our surrounding society and government institutions hijacking those goals in service of control, indoctrination, conformity, and maintaining class and power structures. Schools serve just as much, if not more, to prepare children to work as "productive" members of a capitalist culture, to do what they get told, as they do to teach our kids anything or help them learn to get along with other people. Call me an anarchist or Marxist, I don't care.

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